


le ligne mince entre un mensonge et la réalité

by eliottamoureux



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: College AU, M/M, and eliott didn't repeat terminale, eliott's a third year, fake dating AU except it's only fake for like maybe 15 minutes before it becomes real, lucas comes to the rescue, lucas is a first year, so same age difference as the original but aged up slightly, they're in intro bio together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-28 20:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliottamoureux/pseuds/eliottamoureux
Summary: Lucas has a pair of lips pressed to his now bruised knuckles. On the other end of said pair of lips is the most attractive boy Lucas has ever seen.





	le ligne mince entre un mensonge et la réalité

**Author's Note:**

> my brain really took this and ran with it i guess??
> 
> this came from [a prompt](https://bangbangwhoa.tumblr.com/post/187269174069/aherosarchive-i-had-to-be-ur-fake) that was posted by [the wonderful soraia](https://amorgignitamore.tumblr.com) in The Group Chat™ which says:
> 
> _“i had to be ur fake boyfriend/girlfriend bc some creep was hitting on you and it was making you uncomfortable and now i have busted knuckles and a cut lip but hey are u okay” au_
> 
> so!! here's that w elu!! written in one sitting!! let me know abt typos if you spot any bc this is horrendously unedited lmao
> 
> this one's dedicated to the rat gang— hope you all like it!!!

Lucas doesn’t know a whole lot about Eliott— only the sort of info that an introductory icebreaker activity provides. He’s in third year, studying literature. He’s taking intro biology because he needs a science credit to graduate, and biology was the science class that he had done best in during high school.

Oh— also the fact that, if he were an animal, he’d be a raccoon. Lucas has heard stranger interesting facts, admittedly.

And, listen. If any of his straight friends asked him, he would tell them—  _ adamantly _ , no less— that gaydar is  _ not  _ a thing.

But there’s just…  _ Something,  _ about Eliott. He keeps telling himself that he’s projecting his own hopes that the boy a few seats down with the most  _ beautiful  _ eyes Lucas has ever seen might be into boys. 

But sometimes, Lucas catches him looking.

It’s always fleeting. It might not even be  _ at  _ him— maybe the girl who sits beside him who has a nice laugh and who  _ always  _ has the answers to the homework assignments. It could very well be her— what other evidence has he gotten, anyway? She’s  _ clearly  _ into him, as well. But Eliott… He can’t tell, and it bothers him. He can’t tell if he’s actually  _ sensing—  _ or simply hoping.

If lending Eliott a pen when he forgets one is as far as they get, so be it.

Now, though, he’s at a party.  _ An upperclassmen party,  _ Basile reminds them several times on the way over. Yann had gotten the invite from a classmate of his, and so here they are— decently tipsy and ready for anything.

Well, ready for  _ most  _ things, Lucas thinks. Because this course of events of his arrival has gone as follows:

First, Basile nearly got them turned away at the door, just by being his ridiculous self.

Yann had—  _ thankfully—  _ saved their asses by telling the dude at the door that he has German with the host. The dude at the door seemed satisfied with that. And with Yann promising to keep Basile in check.

Lucas looked through the sea of people and had gotten immediately intimidated by the sheer  _ amount  _ of people. He had been to some crazy parties, but  _ this?  _ Was something else entirely.

To combat his intimidation, he took the biggest swig of the beer in his hand that he could possibly manage.

However— and this is  _ quite  _ the however— mid-swig, he made eye contact with none other than Eliott.

And this time he was  _ sure  _ that Eliott was looking at him, because he laughed when Lucas promptly choked on his beer. Lucas had tried to collect himself, to quell his cough and nod noncommittally over at him in acknowledgement, but Eliott was still grinning when he nodded back.

And, to combat the taunting drone of  _ idiot, idiot  _ in his head and the uncomfortable fluttering in his chest, he had taken refuge in the bathroom.

The bathroom had turned into the front yard— or rather, the veranda surrounding it. There isn’t anyone around the corner, and so he sits in one of the chairs.

The cool autumn air soothes him. His phone buzzes a few moments later.

**TEXT DE: YANN** **  
** Dude, where’d you go? A bunch of the fourth years just brought in a keg

**TEXT À: YANN** **  
** A few too many people for my liking, just getting some air

**TEXT À: YANN** **  
** Go on without me, do a kegstand in my honour

**TEXT DE: YANN**

If you insist!

He  _ genuinely  _ came out for some air, and he was planning on coming back in once his beer dulls the sharp embarrassment of choking on his drink in front of  _ Eliott,  _ of all people—

But then Eliott comes around the corner, and Lucas’ breath catches in his throat.

“Lucas,” Eliott’s smile could bring world peace, Lucas thinks, “Hey! How’s it going?”

It takes him a moment to realize that it  _ him  _ Eliott’s addressing, and not some older, cooler Lucas that just so happens to be sitting a little further down.

“Oh, uh, hey…?” He  _ hates  _ how unsure his voice comes out.

“We have bio together..? Eliott.” Eliott gestures toward himself, and Lucas tries to gather his thoughts before he chokes in front of Eliott  _ again— _

“I know, I  _ know _ — sorry, I didn’t mean like ‘hey, do I know you?’ I meant like ‘hey, we’ve never spoken before but what’s up? You know?”  _ God you’re just making things worse, Lallemant,  _ he mentally scolds himself, but then Eliott laughs again, just a light chuckle, and Lucas’ brain stops dead in his tracks. There doesn’t seem to be malice in it, and Lucas’ heart leaps at the sound.

“Oh, alright!” Lucas is laughing too, then. “Listen, I know we’ve never really spoken before, but can I ask you a favour?”  _ You could ask me to kill someone and I would say yes without a second thought,  _ is what Lucas’ brain provides, but he only nods dumbly in response. “So I had this…  _ Thing,  _ with someone a while ago. Nothing serious— well, at least I didn’t think so. But they seem to think otherwise. And they’re here tonight, and they’ve said some… less than ideal things to me.” Lucas nods along as Eliott speaks, trying not to get distracted by the way his voice sounds like music. “So I’m thinking if I’m…  _ with  _ someone, they might back off.” Lucas continues to nod until Eliott looks at him, and he tries his hardest not to blush. He knows what Eliott’s asking, but he doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know how to  _ speak  _ and then just when he thinks Eliott can’t render him any more speechless— “Would you… Pretend to be my boyfriend, just until they back off a bit?”

Boyfriend.

_ Boyfriend. _

_ Pretend,  _ on one hand. But on the other,  _ boyfriend. _

“Sure.” Lucas says, as if he didn’t just momentarily forget every word he’s ever learned in his life.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, what do you need from me?”  _ PDA? I can do that,  _ he thinks. Then his traitorous mind goes a little wild with possibilities.  _ Kissing? I can do that as well— or maybe something more? Making out? We can pretend to go to the bathroom for a quickie or whatever, or maybe for realism’s sake we could— _

“Just being affectionate is fine. Snuggling a bit— could I kiss your cheek, maybe?” And  _ wow,  _ Lucas really didn’t realize how gone he is for Eliott, because the sheer  _ concept  _ of Eliott kissing him  _ anywhere  _ makes him want to explode, if he’s being perfectly honest.

“ _ Yeah _ — yes, yeah.”

“Great,” Eliott’s grateful smile is payment enough— is enough payment for this a million times over. “Because I think he saw me come out of the house, and I think he might be—”

“ _ Eliott, _ ” an unfamiliar voice croons. Lucas hates this guy already. “There you are.” He’s tall, and he’s muscular— an athlete of some sort, Lucas thinks— this guy is everything that Lucas isn’t. There’s an air of arrogance about him too, that makes one half of Lucas want to back down and the other half of him want to kick him where it hurts the most. “Is this your little boyfriend?” He’s the sort of person whose laugh makes you feel bad about yourself, who knows exactly what to say to make people feel insecure. “He’s so small— what is he, a  _ high schooler _ ?”

“First year.” Lucas corrects, simple and blunt.

“He speaks!” Again, the only impressive thing about this boy is how good he is at being condescending. “So,  _ lover boy,  _ how did he lure you in?” Lucas is about to answer, some half-true nonsense about them meeting in biology and falling for each other. “Did he write you  _ poetry,  _ did he quote stanzas of Virginia Woolf at you?” And, wow, okay— even  _ Lucas  _ knows that Virginia Woolf wrote in prose, and he’s probably the  _ least  _ literary person to walk the earth. Did this dude really listen to Eliott  _ that  _ little? “Did he confess to you while you made out in the bathroom, ‘oh Léon, I think I _ love  _ you!’”

“Please,” Eliott scoffs, and both Lucas and the boy turn to him. “You think me sucking you off a few times constitutes love?” If the moment were just  _ slightly  _ less tense, and if Lucas had had a  _ little  _ less willpower, his jaw would have dropped. “Just because I asked you to make things  _ official  _ doesn’t mean I love you, or that I ever did.” Lucas had been looking at Léon, to gauge his reaction— but then Eliott takes his hand, and a full-body shiver runs through him as Eliott glances at him momentarily, at his cold tone. “ _ Listen,  _ Léon, I’m over you, I’ve  _ been  _ over you for a long time, and I’m happy with someone else, can’t you accept that? What do you want to get out of this?”

“I want this  _ boy  _ to know the truth,” Léon’s smiling, like he knows something Lucas doesn’t, and he hates it. He hates what he’s saying, he hates the power that he seems to think he’s entitled to over Eliott— or  _ anyone  _ for that matter. “That you pull people in and then you toss them out once you’re done like they’re some piece of trash—”

“‘Toss them out’? What part of you cheating on me involved me tossing you out, hm?” 

And  _ oh. _

Oh  _ fuck. _

This boy did  _ what? _

Eliott continues, “What part of you thinking you can fuck whoever you want and that I’ll keep coming back like some fucking  _ housewife _ —”

“Oh  _ fuck  _ you—” Léon lunges forward, but Eliott dodges out of the way.

“Don’t touch me!” But then Léon is lunging in again and—

That was it, for Lucas.

If you had asked him for specific details on the next few moments, he would have come up empty.

All he knows is that Eliott stepped back, and he stepped forward at the same time. He would have been able to wax poetic in his head about their synchronicity if he hadn’t been more focused on other things— namely, landing his fist against Léon’s jaw with a deafening thud. He thought he had done it, that he had intimidated Léon enough for him to back off, but then a fist landed square on his bottom lip—

Lucas feels the blood dripping down his chin before the pain of the cut across his lip.

They both throw more punches, shove each other around while Eliott tries to separate them. Realistically, they’re probably only at it for fifteen seconds, but it feels like an eternity before Léon steps back.

“You know what, fuck this.” He says, wiping the blood from a split lip of his own. “This isn’t worth it,  _ you’re  _ not worth it. Fuck this, fuck you.” Then Léon’s storming off, down the front steps and off into the night, leaving them alone with each other once more.

And in that moment, shame washes over Lucas like a wave.

“Eliott, I’m—”

“ _ Please  _ don’t apologize,” They’re sitting down again, and Eliott is smiling when Lucas risks looking back over at him. “No one’s ever done something like that for me before.”

“It’s just— I’m not the sort of person who gets into fights, I swear.” Lucas’ voice is quiet, all of a sudden. “I don’t want you to view me like that, cause that’s not me, you know?”

“Then I won’t.” Eliott says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I believe you.” Lucas really doesn’t know what to say, because he hasn’t been in a moment this intimate in ages—  _ ever,  _ maybe.

Eliott’s voice is gentle, when he breaks the silence.

“It was first year, I had just come out. It was simple, and he was nice to me, until… He wasn’t. I don’t know what happened with him. Maybe he was just pretending, and he had really been an asshole all along.” He takes a shaky breath, and Lucas almost reaches out to him, but then decides against it. “I’m glad I got out when I did.” And then his smile’s back, but it’s not as big, doesn’t quite reach his eyes— makes Lucas want to take away all of his problems, all of his worries until it does again. “Hey, Lucas, thank you, I really mean it.”

“Anytime.” Lucas punches Eliott’s elbow weakly when Eliott rolls his eyes. “Hey, I mean it. I’ve actually been… Looking for a way to talk to you, as stupid as that sounds.”

“But you could have just, you know… Come up to me?”  _ But I couldn’t have,  _ Lucas wants to say.  _ Because you’re you. _

Instead, though, he says— “ _ Now _ we’re talking, at least.” 

“Well  _ yeah,  _ but you also have a split lip and busted knuckles.” 

“Fair point. It was worth it to get that creep away from you.” Eliott’s expression softens, and it’s moments like these when Lucas wishes he could read minds— especially with someone like Eliott, who’s so mysterious— at least to him. “‘Not worth it,’ what the fuck is he saying?”

“I don’t know.” Eliott leans downward, then, taking Lucas’ hand and pressing a feather-light kiss to his bruised and bloody knuckles. “My hero.” If the concept of being Eliott’s boyfriend had rendered Lucas unable to speak, having Eliott kiss him—  _ genuinely  _ kiss him— made him forget how to breathe. They’re both quiet again, and Lucas’ eyes keep flicking between Eliott’s face and his hand, still held in Eliott’s. “I really want to repay you. How about dinner? Or maybe a coffee or something?”

“Is my fake boyfriend asking me out on a fake date?”

“Mm, no.” Eliott leans  _ in,  _ now, instead of down, pressing a kiss to Lucas’ bottom lip, freshly scabbed over, right in the corner, stealing the air out of his lungs again in the process. “A classmate who thinks you’re cute is asking you out on a  _ real  _ one.”


End file.
